Wireless connection wild ping fluctuation - Intel Wifi 5100

I have managed to run Battlefield 2 reasonably well on my Acer Aspire AS1410 CULV notebook. It has a 1.4GHz Core 2 Solo (SU3500) CPU, 4GB DDR2 800 (2x2GB), and GMA 4500MHD with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. When I play using Wi-Fi, my ping wildly fluxuates between 40 and 200. Hard connection seems to do well. Other games don't have this issue.

Any suggestions on eliminating this ping fluxuation?

 

anyone? HELP?

 

Im guessing you already have your latest WiFi card drivers?

 

Yes, thanks. I even set the wlan process to high priority and real-time priority but with little improvement. Maybe the CPU is just overtaxed.

 

hmm... what about the latest firmware on your router?

 

Firmware is up to date. I'm running BF2 on my Sager NP8662 just to compare and it fluctuates a little, but nothing like my Acer. NP8662 will go from like 50 to 150 periodically, but not too often. Acer goes from 50 to 500 frequently.

The way my networking is set up, I'm thinking of running a hard wire to where I keep my laptop most of the time (in kitchen) so if I want to game I don't have the issues with wireless.

 

My cable internet connection varies depending on the number, and activity of the other scribers up stream from me. I can have a very strong signal and then a big drop due to the other subcribers.

This is even more noticable when up loading many large photo files to SmugMug. i try to due that either late at night or very early in the AM, because I have a stronger and more consistent connection.

 

Who are you pinging? Devices on your local network or comparing game servers on the internet? Based on your pings in the range of 40ms and 200ms, that's your internet connection (or most likely theirs), not your wifi connection. You're actually barking up the wrong tree thinking your wireless is the culprit.

 

Well, it is my in-game ping that cycles up and down. I can have my more powerful notebook right next to it and it doesn't fluctuate like that, connecting to the same server minutes later, nor does my desktop with a hard connection, so it isn't my internet connection. My netbook just fluctuates like crazy.

 

If that's the case, is the problematic laptop dropping packets/pings to the servers?

 

Yeah I have that problem too on my acer 5920g with an upgraded n card but my fluctuations are from 22-500 making it impossible to play bf2 at times. I have to put the router on n only setting which i dont like to because of the wifi on my itouch has only g i dont know what to do either i even set the wireless card to multimedia/gaming environment which helped because it was worse

 

The root of the problem is almost certainly the fact that you're using wireless. You state that "Hard connection seems to do well," which I take to mean that you don't have this problem when you're playing with your computer wired into the router instead of using the wireless NIC.

First thing to check is how much other wireless traffic you have around you. How many other networks can your system "see"?

 

How would more wireless traffic affect your connection? Once connected it shouldn't matter should it?

 

Does it happen intermittently?

Because windows background scans for wifi networks every minute or so causing the ping to spike/fluctuate.

Try using this tool calling WLAN optimizer and disable background scan. Keep Autoconfig ON and try disabling streaming mode if all else fails.

 

Great, thanks for that utility, will give it a try!

 

Very simple. All wireless network components are built to be collision-avoidant - in plain English, a transmitter will first check to see if any other node is transmitting, and if it is, it will wait until the signal frequency it's using is clear before transmitting its own signal. Thus, if there is a lot of other traffic from other wireless networks broadcasting on the same frequency you're using, your router and wireless NIC will both slow down as they will be constantly waiting for that other traffic to finish before they transmit their own signals.

 

So how would this explain my other laptops working fine with wireless?

 

That's the first time you've mentioned "other laptops" - are you now saying that you have other laptops that will connect to the same wireless router and not exhibit the same symptoms this particular laptop is exhibiting when playing the same game that causes this particular laptop so much grief?

 

Yes, and I did mention this in post #9. I will try the utility suggested flipfire. Just haven't had the chance yet. Thanks for your responses so far though.

 

Hmm, yeah, clear as mud. No matter, try Flipfire's utility - it's always better to know more rather than less - and then come back when your problem still exists.